Excerpt from Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"What are you reading about?" she asked.

"How to hedge against exogenous shocks," Alistair said. "You?"

"The opposite, I think."

On Sundays they listened to the distant bells of St. Francis. Throughout June and July the sky remained un-Binghamtonianally blue. Except for when he received an envy-inducing dispatch from the Mumbai kids, who were "backpacking" through Europe (Alistair saw no "backpacks," only plates of exquisitely arranged food and infinity pools at high-end hotels), he experienced nary a disruption in his good mood. The beautiful weather was like the beautiful weather in his head. Given the victories he'd secured thus far, he reasoned, how could he expect not to secure more victories, in larger quantities and at accelerated rates? Given how far he'd come, in so short a time, how could he expect his trajectory not to follow an exponentially upward curve?

Given how wonderfully things were going, in other words, how could he have predicted the disappointments that soon followed?

Excerpted from Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts. Copyright © 2024 by Daniel Lefferts. Excerpted by permission of The Overlook Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.